New Bioshock Game. Ish.

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Actual game may vary – i.e. not look like our crappy mocked-up screenshot.

Sorta. It may not be Bioshock 2, but a new Bioshock title is indeed on the way – for mobile phones (they’re like PCs, but tiny and with fewer buttons).

Side-scrolling platformer? Ooh, probably. Either that or just an extended version of the Pipemania-inspired hacking mini-game. No actual details yet, but maybe, just maybe, we do live in a world where a 256 colour, 128×128, four-button cellphone game that includes shocking twists, discussion upon the nature of self and references to Ayn Rand could actually happen.

“We’re trying to do great things and BioShock on mobile promises to offer a whole new gaming experience and unmatched excitement amongst mobile gamers the world over. BioShock is a special game in its genre; it brings an element of conflicting morals which has an impact on the storyline, and, among other things, on the difficulty of the game itself.”
-Sean Malatesta, CEO of developer IG Fun

So, no Irrational involvement by the sound of it – it’s in the hands of these IG Fun fellas, whose previous output includes official mobile adaptations of The Office and Rush Hour 3. Oh yes – we finally have a link between System Shock 2 and Chris Tucker.

12 Comments

I don’t see how they could possibly adapt Bioshock, a game all about environment and narrative, onto a platform with a small screen and low processing power. It may have the same name, but I doubt this version will resemble the Bioshock we I know and love.

That being said, who would have thought that a horror game could be pulled off on a portable system before Dementium: The Ward.

You move west
>look
You see a big daddy
>punch big daddy
You are dead.
Now you aren’t
>go east
You move east
>look
You see a dystopian underwater world. The sea intrudes through warped doors and cascades down the stairs. Adverts boast the miraculous powers of plasmids while graffiti scrawled on the walls talks of tyranny and corporate corruption. Looking at this makes you feel trapped and question what went so wrong. Your wrench provides stark comfort with its wieght and solidness.
You are set on fire by a man in bunny ears and shot by a cabaret woman with a page boy haircut.
You are dead

I can think of several ways that Bioshock – or rather, a Bioshock game – could be effectively done on mobile. Lifting heavily from Doom RPG/Orcs & Elves would work (aside from the prettiness, Rapture isn’t exactly the most complex and multi-leveled game environment ever); or alternatively, isometric Big Daddy stalking. Hunt the Objectivist Wumpus?

There have now been a fair few mobile games that have taken on the mantle of big console/PC properties and acquitted themselves well, but sadly most of the ‘traditional’ games press still have preconceptions of the format based on Snake and the rubbish games built into their Blackberries.

As to the question of why, well, why not? If the concept and world is robust enough to carry one game, it’s worth trying to adapt it to sister mediums.

All that said, I’d be more confident of Bioshock mobile’s chances if a publisher with a better track record was handling it (IG Fun have a reputation of being little more than an IP clearing house, although I guess there’s a small chance they could farm out the development to someone decent).